The Prime Minister by Anthony Trollope (page 15)

‘The House is tired of the Duke?’

‘The Duke is so good a man that I hardly like to admit even that, –but I fear it is so. He is fretful and he makes enemies.’

‘I sometimes think that he is ill.’

‘He is ill at ease and sick at heart. He cannot hide his chagrin, and then is double wretched because he has betrayed it. I do not know that I ever respected, and, at the same time, pitied a man more thoroughly.’

‘He snubbed me awfully yesterday,’ said Phineas.

‘He cannot help himself. He snubs me at every word that he speaks; yet I believe that is most anxious to be civil to me. His ministry has been of great service to the country. For myself, I shall never regret having joined it. But I think that to him it has been a continual sorrow.’

The system on which the Duchess had commenced her career as wife of the Prime Minister had now been completely abandoned. In the first place, she had herself become so weary of it that she had been unable to continue the exertion. She had, too, become in some degree ashamed of her failures. The names of Major Pountney and Mr Lopez were not now pleasant to her ears, nor did she look back with satisfaction on the courtesies she had lavished on Sir Orlando or the smiles she had given to Sir Timothy Beeswax. ‘I’ve known a good many vulgar people in my time,’ she said one day to Mrs Finn, ‘but none ever so vulgar as our ministerial supporters. You don’t remember Mr Bott, my dear. He was before your time;–one of the arithmetical men, a great friend of Plantagenet’s. He was very bad, but there have come up worse since him. Sometimes, I think, I like a little vulgarity for a change; but, upon my honour, when we get rid of all this it will be a pleasure to go back to ladies and gentlemen.’ This the Duchess said in extreme bitterness.

‘It seems to me that you have pretty well got rid of “all this” already.’

‘But I haven’t got anybody else in their place. I have almost made up my mind not to ask anyone into the house for the next twelve months. I used to think that nothing would ever knock me up, but now I feel that I’m almost done for. I hardly dare open my mouth to Plantagenet. The Duke of St Bungay has cut me. Mr Monk looks as ominous as an owl; and your husband hasn’t a word to say left. Barrington Erle hides his face and passes by when he sees me. Mr Rattler did try to comfort me the other day by saying that everything was at sixes and sevens, and I really took it almost as a compliment to be spoken to. Don’t you think Plantagenet is ill?’

‘He is careworn.’

‘A man may be worn by care till there comes to be nothing left of him. But he never speaks of giving up now. The old Bishop of St Austell talks of resigning, and he has already made up his mind who is to have the see. He used to consult the Duke about all these things, but I don’t think he ever consults anyone now. He never forgave the Duke about Lord Earlybird. Certainly, if a man wants to quarrel with all his friends, and to double the hatred of all his enemies, he had better become Prime Minister.’

‘Are you really sorry that such was his fate, Lady Glen?’

‘Ah,–I sometimes ask myself that question, but I never get an answer. I should have thought him a poltroon if he had declined. It is to be the greatest man in the greatest country in the world. Do ever so little and the men who write history must write about you. And no man ever tried to be nobler than he till –till–‘

‘Make no exception. If he be careworn and ill and weary, his manners cannot be the same as they were, but his purity is the same as ever.’

‘I don’t know that it would remain so. I believe in him, Marie, more than in any man,–but I believe in none thoroughly. There is a devil creeps in upon them when their hands are strengthened. I do not know what I would have wished. Whenever I do wish, I always wish wrong. Ah, me; when I think of all those people I had down at Gatherum,–of the trouble I took, and of the glorious anticipations in which I revelled, I do feel ashamed of myself. Do you remember when I was determined that that wretch should be member for Silverbridge?’

‘You haven’t seen her since, Duchess?’

‘No; but I mean to see her. I couldn’t make her first husband member, and therefore the man who is member is to be her second husband. But I’m almost sick of schemes. Oh dear, I wish I knew something that was really pleasant to do. I have never really enjoyed anything since I was in love, and I only liked that because it was wicked.’

The Duchess was wrong in saying that the Duke of St Bungay had cut them. The old man still remembered the kiss and still remembered the pledge. But he had found it very difficult to maintain his old relations with his friend. It was his opinion that the Coalition had done all that was wanted from it, and that now had come the time when they might retire gracefully. It is, no doubt, hard for a Prime Minister to find an excuse for going. But if the Duke of Omnium would have been content to acknowledge that he was not the man to alter the County Suffrage, an excuse might have been found that would have been injurious to no one. Mr Monk and Mr Gresham might have joined, and the present Prime Minister might have resigned, explaining that he had done all that he had been appointed to accomplish. He had, however, yielded at once to Mr Monk, and now it was to be feared that the House of Commons would not accept the bill from his hands. In such a state of things,–especially after that disagreement about Lord Earlybird,–it was difficult for the old Duke to tender his advice. He was at every Cabinet Council; he always came when his presence was required; he was invariably good- humoured;–but it seemed to him that his work was done. He could hardly volunteer to tell his chief and his colleague that he would certainly be beaten in the House of Commons, and that therefore there was little more now to be done than to arrange the circumstances of their retirement. Nevertheless, as the period of the second reading of the bill came on, he resolved that he would discuss the matter with his friend. He owed it to himself to do so, and he owed it to the man whom he had certainly placed in his present position. On himself politics had imposed a burden very much lighter than that which they had inflicted on his more energetic and much less practical colleague. Through his long life he had either been in office, or in such a position that men were sure that he would soon return to it. He had taken it, when it had come, willingly, and had always left without a regret. As a man cuts in and out at a whist table, and enjoys the game and the rest from the game, so had the Duke of St Bungay been well pleased in either position. He was patriotic; but his patriotism did not disturb his digestion. He had been ambitious, –but moderately ambitious, and his ambition had been gratified. It never occurred to him to be unhappy because he or his party were beaten on a measure. When President of the Council, he would do his duty and enjoy London life. When in opposition, he could linger in Italy till May and devote his leisure to his trees and his bullocks. He was always esteemed, always self- satisfied, and always Duke of St Bungay. But with our Duke it was very different. Patriotism with him was a fever, and the public service an exacting mistress. As long as this had been all he had still been happy. Not trusting in himself, he had never aspired to great power. But now, now at last, ambition had laid hold of him,–and the feeling, not perhaps uncommon with such men, that personal dishonour attached to personal failure. What would his future life be if he had so carried himself in his great office as to have shown himself to be unfit to resume it? Hitherto any office had sufficed him in which he might be useful; –but now he must either be Prime Minister, or a silent, obscure, and humbled man!

DEAR DUKE,
I will be with you to-morrow morning at 11am, if you can give me half-an-hour.
Yours affectionately,
ST. B.

The Prime Minister received this note one afternoon, a day or two before that appointed for the second reading, and meeting his friend within an hour in the House of Lords, confirmed the appointment. ‘Shall I not rather come to you?’ he said. But the old Duke, who lived in St James’s Square, declared that Carlton Terrace would be on his way to Downing Street, and so the matter was settled. Exactly at eleven the two Ministers met. ‘I don’t like troubling you,’ said the old man, ‘when I know that you have so much to think of.’

‘On the contrary, I have but little to think of,–and my thoughts must be very much engaged, indeed, when they shall be too full to admit of seeing you.’

‘Of course we are all anxious about this bill.’ The Prime Minister smiled. Anxious! Yes, indeed. His anxiety was of such a nature that it kept him awake all night, and never for a moment left his mind free by day. ‘And of course we must be prepared as to what shall be done either in the event of success or failure.’

‘You might as well read that,’ said the other. ‘It only reached me this morning, or I should have told you of it.’ The letter was a communication from the Solicitor-General containing his resignation. He had now studied the County Suffrage Bill closely, and regretted to say that he could not give it conscientious support. It was a matter of sincerest sorrow to him that his relations so pleasant should be broken, but he must resign his place, unless, indeed, the clauses as to redistribution could be withdrawn. Of course he did not say this as expecting any such concession would be made to his opinion, but merely as indicating the matter on which his objection was so strong as to over-rule all other considerations. All this he explained at great length.

‘The pleasantness of the relations must have all been on one side,’ said the veteran. ‘He ought to have gone a long time since.’

‘And Lord Drummond has already as good as said that unless we will abandon the same clauses, he must oppose the bill in the Lords.’

‘And resign, of course.’

‘He meant that, I presume. Lord Ramsden has not spoken to me.’

‘The clauses will not stick in his throat. Nor ought they. If the lawyers have their own way about the law they should be contented.’

‘The question is, whether in these circumstances we should postpone the second reading?’ asked the Prime Minister.

‘Certainly not,’ said the other Duke. ‘As to the Solicitor- General you will have no difficulty. Sir Timothy was only placed there as a concession to his party. Drummond will no doubt continue to hold his office till we see what is done in the Lower House. If the second reading be lost there,–why, then his lordship can go with the rest of us.’

‘Rattler says we shall have a majority. He and Roby are quite agreed about it. Between them they must know,’ said the Prime Minister, unintentionally pleading for himself.

‘They ought to know, if any men do;–but the crisis is exceptional. I suppose you think that if the second reading is lost we should resign?’

‘Oh;–certainly.’

‘Or, after that, if the bill is much mutilated in Committee? I don’t know that I shall personally break my own heart about the bill. The existing difference in the suffrages is rather in accordance with my prejudices. But the country desires the measure, and I suppose we cannot consent to any material alteration as these men suggest.’ As he spoke he laid his hand on Sir Timothy’s letter.

‘Mr Monk would not hear of it,’ said the Prime Minister.

‘Of course not. And you and I in this measure must stick to Mr Monk. My great, indeed my only strong desire in the matter, is to act in unison with you.’

‘You are always good and true, Duke.’

‘For my own part, I shall not in the least regret to find in all this an opportunity for resigning. We have done our work, and if, as I believe, a majority of the House would again support either Gresham or Monk as the head of the entire Liberal party, I think that that arrangement would be for the welfare of the country.’

‘Why should it make any difference to you? Why should you not return to the Council?’

‘I should not do so;–certainly not at once, probably never. But you,–who are in the very prime of your life–‘

The Prime Minister did not smile now. He knit his brows and a dark shadow came across his face. ‘I don’t think I could do that,’ he said. ‘Caesar would hardly have led a legion under Pompey.’

‘It has been done, greatly to the service of the country, and without the slightest loss of honour or character in him who did it.’

‘We need hardly talk of that, Duke. You think then that we shall fail;–fail, I mean in the House of Commons. I do not know that failure in our House should be regarded as fatal.’

‘In three cases we should fail. The loss of any material clause in Committee would be as bad as the loss of the bill.’

‘Oh yes.’

‘And then, in spite of Messrs Rattler and Roby,–who have been wrong before and may be wrong now,–we may lose the second reading.’

‘And the third chance against us?’

‘You would not probably try to carry on the bill with a very small majority.’

‘Not with three or four.’

‘Nor, I think, with six or seven. It would be useless. My own belief is that we shall never carry the bill into Committee.’

‘I have always known you to be right, Duke.’

‘I think that the general opinion has set in that direction, and general opinion is generally right. Having come to that conclusion I thought it best to tell you, in order that we might have our house in order.’ The Duke of Omnium, with all his haughtiness and all his reserve, was the simplest man in the world and the least apt to pretend to be that which he was not, sighed deeply when he heard this. ‘For my own part,’ continued the elder, ‘I feel no regret that it should be so.’

‘It is the first large measure that we have tried to carry.’

‘We did not come in to carry large measures, my friend. Look back and see how many large measures Pitt carried;–but he took the country safely through its most dangerous crisis.’

‘What have we done?’

‘Carried on the Queen’s Government prosperously for three years. Is that nothing for a minister to do? I have never been a friend of great measures, knowing that when they come fast, one after another, more is broken in the rattle than is repaired by the reform. We have done what Parliament and the country expected us to do, and to my poor judgement we have done it well.’

‘I do not feel such self-satisfaction, Duke. Well;–we must see it out, and if it is as you anticipate, I shall be ready. Of course I have prepared myself for it. And if, of late, my mind has been less turned to retirement than it used to be, it has been because I have become wedded to this measure, and have wished it that it should be carried under our auspices.’ Then the old Duke took his leave, and the Prime Minister was left alone to consider the announcement that had been made to him.

He had said that he had prepared himself, but, in so saying, he had hardly known himself. Hitherto, though he had been troubled by many doubts, he had still hoped. The report made to him by Mr Rattler, backed as it had been by Mr Roby’s assurances, had almost sufficed to give him confidence. But Mr Rattler and Mr Roby combined were as nothing to the Duke of St Bungay. The Prime Minister knew now,–that his days were numbered. The resignation of that lingering old bishop was not completed, and the person whom he believed would not have the see. He had meditated the making of a peer or two, having hitherto been cautious in that respect, but he would do nothing of the kind if called upon by the House of Commons to resign with an uncompleted measure. But his thoughts soon ran away from the present to the future. What was now to become of himself? How should he live his future life;–he who as yet had not passed his forty-seventh year? He regretted much having made that apparently pretentious speech about Caesar, though he knew his old friend well enough to be sure that it would never be used against him. Who was he that he should class himself among the big ones of the world? A man may indeed measure small things by great, but the measurer should be careful to declare his own littleness when he illustrates his position by that of the topping ones of the earth. But the thing said had been true. Let the Pompey be who he might, he, the little Caesar of the day, could never now command another legion.

He had once told Phineas Finn that he regretted that he had abstained from the ordinary amusements of English gentlemen. But he had abstained from their ordinary occupations,–except so far as politics is one of them. He cared nothing for oxen or for furrows. In regard to his own land he hardly knew whether the farms were large or small. He had been a scholar, and after a certain fitful fashion he had maintained his scholarship, but the literature to which he had been really attached had been that of blue books and newspapers. What was he to do with himself when called upon to resign? And he understood,–or thought that he understood,–his position too well to expect that after a while, with the usual interval, he might return to power. He had been Prime Minister, not as the leading politician on either side, not as the king of the party, but,–so he told himself,–as a stop- gap. There could be nothing for him now till the insipidity of life should gradually fade away into the grave.

After a while he got up and went off to his wife’s apartment, the room in which she used to prepare her triumphs and where now she contemplated her disappointments. ‘I have had the Duke with me,’ he said.

‘What;–at last?’

‘I do not know that he could have done any good by coming sooner.’

‘And what does his Grace say?’

‘He thinks our days are numbered.’

‘Psha!–is that all? I could have told him that ever so long ago. It was hardly necessary that he should disturb himself at last to come and tell us such well-ventilated news. There isn’t a porter at one of the clubs who doesn’t know it.’

‘Then there will be the less surprise,–and to those who are concerned perhaps the less mortification.’

‘Did he tell you who was to succeed you?’ asked the Duchess.

‘Not precisely.’

‘He ought to have done that, as I am sure he knows. Everybody knows except you, Plantagenet.’

‘If you know, you can tell me.’

‘Of course I can. It is Mr Monk.’

‘With all my heart, Glencora. Mr Monk is a very good man.’

‘I wonder whether he’ll do anything for us. Think how destitute we shall be! What if I were to ask him for a place! Would he not give it us?’

‘Will it make you unhappy, Cora?’

‘What;–your going?’

‘Yes;–the change altogether.’

She looked him in the face for a moment before she answered, with a peculiar smile in her eyes to which he was well used,–a smile half ludicrous, half pathetic,–having in it also a dash of sarcasm. ‘I can dare to tell the truth,’ she said, ‘which you can’t. I can be honest and straightforward. Yes, it will make me unhappy. And you?’

‘Do you think that I cannot be honest too,–at any rate to you? It does fret me. I do not like to think that I shall be without work.’

‘Yes;–Othello’s occupation will be gone,–for a while, for a while.’ Then she came up to him and put both her hands on his breast. ‘But yet, Othello, I shall not be unhappy.’

‘Where will be your contentment?’

‘In you. It was making you ill. Rough people whom the tenderness of your nature could not well endure, trod upon you, and worried you with their teeth and wounded you everywhere. I could have turned at them again with my teeth, and given them worry for worry;–but you could not. Now you will be saved from them, and so I shall not be discontented.’ All this she said looking up into his face, still with that smile which was half pathetic and half ludicrous.

‘Then I shall be contented too,’ he said as he kissed her.

CHAPTER 73

ONLY THE DUKE OF OMNIUM.

The night of the debate arrived, but before the debate was commenced, Sir Timothy Beeswax got up to make a personal explanation. He thought it right to state to the House how it came to pass that he found himself bound to leave the Ministry at so important a crisis in its existence. Then an observation was made by an honourable member of the Government,–presumably in a whisper, but still loud enough to catch the sharp ears of Sir Timothy, who now sat just below the gangway. It was said afterwards that the gentleman who made the observation,–an Irish gentleman named Fitzgibbon, conspicuous rather for his loyalty to his party than his steadiness,–had purposely taken the place in which he then sat, that Sir Timothy might hear his whisper. The whisper suggested that falling houses were often left by certain animals. It was certainly a very loud whisper,– but, if gentlemen are to be allowed to whisper at all, it is almost impossible to restrain the volume of the voice. To restrain Mr Fitzgibbon had always been found difficult. Sir Timothy, who did not lack pluck, turned at once upon his assailant, and declared that words had been used with reference to himself which the honourable member did not dare to get upon his legs and repeat. Larry Fitzgibbon, as the gentleman was called, looked him full in the face, but did not move his hat from his head or stir a limb. It was a pleasant little episode in the evening’s work, and afforded satisfaction to the House generally. The details of the measure, as soon as they were made known to him, appeared to him, he said, to be fraught with the gravest and most pernicious consequences. He was sure that members of her Majesty’s Government, who were hurrying on this measure with what he thought was an indecent haste,–ministers are always either indecent in haste or treacherous in their delay,–had not considered what they were doing, or, if they had considered, were blind as to the results. He then attempted to discuss the details of the measure, but was called to order. A personal explanation could not be allowed to give an opportunity of anticipating the debate. He contrived, however, before he sat down, to say some very heavy things against his late chief, and especially to congratulate the Duke on the services of the honourable gentleman, the member for Mayo,–meaning thereby Mr Laurence Fitzgibbon.

It would have perhaps been well for everybody if the measure could have been withdrawn and the Ministry could have resigned without the debate,–as everybody was convinced what would be the end of it. Let the second reading go as it might, the bill could not be carried. There are measures which require the hopeful heartiness of a new Ministry, and the thoroughgoing energy of a young Parliament,–and this was one of them. The House was as fully agreed that this change was necessary, as it ever agreed on any subject,–but still the thing could not be done. Even Mr Monk, who was the most earnest of men, felt the general slackness of all around him. The commotion and excitement which would be caused by a change of Ministry might restore its proper tone to the House, but at its present condition it was unfit for its work. Nevertheless Mr Monk made his speech, and put all his arguments into lucid order. He knew it was for nothing, but nevertheless it must be done. For hour after hour he went on,–for it was necessary to give every detail of his contemplated proposition. He went through it as sedulously as though he had expected to succeed, and sat down about nine o’clock in the evening. Then Sir Orlando moved the adjournment of the House till the morrow, giving as his reason for doing so, the expedience of considering the details he had heard. To this no opposition was made, and the House was adjourned.

On the following day the clubs were all alive with rumours as to the coming debate. It was known that a strong party had been formed under the auspices of Sir Orlando, and that with him Sir Timothy and other politicians were in close council. It was of course necessary that they should impart to many the secrets of their conclave, so that it was known early in the afternoon that it was the intention of the Opposition not to discuss the bill, but to move that it be read again that day six months. The Ministry had hardly expected this, as the bill was undoubtedly popular both in the House and the country; and if the Opposition should be beaten in such a course, that defeat would tend greatly to strengthen the hands of the Government. But if the foe should succeed in carrying a positive veto on the second reading, it would under all the circumstances be tantamount to a want of confidence. ‘I’m afraid they know almost more than we do as to the feeling of members,’ said Mr Roby to Mr Rattler.

‘There isn’t a man in the House whose feeling in the matter I don’t know,’ said Rattler, ‘but I’m not quite so sure of their principles. On our own side, in our old party, there are a score of men who detest the Duke, though they would fain be true to the Government. They have voted with him through thick and thin, and he has not spoken a word to them since he became Prime Minister. What are you to do with such a man? How are you to act with him?’

‘Lupton wrote to him the other day about something,’ answered the other, ‘I forget what, and he got a note back from Warburton as cold as ice,–an absolute slap in the face. Fancy treating a man like Lupton in that way,–one of the most popular men in the House, related to half the peerage, and a man who thinks so much of himself! I shouldn’t wonder if he were to vote against us;– I shouldn’t indeed.’

‘It has all been the old Duke’s doing,’ said Rattler, ‘and no doubt it was intended for the best; but the thing has been a failure from the beginning to the end. I knew it would be so. I don’t think there has been a single man who has understood what a Ministerial Coalition really means except you and I. From the very beginning all your men were averse to it in spirit.’

‘Look how they were treated!’ said Mr Roby. ‘Was it likely that they should be very staunch when Mr Monk became Leader of the House?’

There was a Cabinet Council that day which lasted but a few minutes, and it may be easily presumed that the Ministers decided that they would all resign at once if Sir Orlando should carry his amendment. It is not unlikely that they were agreed to do the same if he should carry it,–leaving probably the Prime Minister to judge what narrow majority would constitute nearness. On this occasion the gentlemen assembled were jocose in their manner, and apparently well satisfied,–as though they saw before them an end to all their troubles. The Spartan boy did not even make a grimace when the wolf bit him beneath his frock, and these were all Spartan boys. Even the Prime Minister, who had fortified himself for the occasion, and who never wept in any company but that of his wife and his old friend, was pleasant in his manner and almost affable. ‘We shan’t make the step towards the millennium just at present,’ he said to Phineas Finn as they left the room together,–referring to words which Phineas had spoken on a former occasion, and which then had not been very well taken.

‘But we shall have made a step towards the step,’ said Phineas, ‘and getting to a millennium even that is something.’

‘I suppose we are all too anxious,’ said the Duke, ‘to see some green effects come from our own little doings. Good day. We shall know all about it tolerably early. Monk seems to think that it will be an attack on the Ministry and not on the bill, and that it will be best to get a vote with as little delay as possible.’

‘I’ll bet an even five-pound note,’ said Mr Lupton at the Carlton, ‘that the present Ministry is out to-morrow, and another that no one names five members of the next Cabinet.’

‘You can help to win your first bet,’ said Mr Beauchamp, a very old member, who, like many other Conservatives, had supported the Coalition.

‘I shall not do that,’ said Lupton, ‘though I think I ought. I won’t vote against the man in his misfortunes, though, upon my soul, I don’t love him very dearly. I shall vote neither way, but I hope that Sir Orlando may succeed.’

‘If he do, who is to come in?’ said the other. ‘I suppose you don’t want to serve under Sir Orlando?’

‘Nor certainly under the Duke of Omnium. We shall not want a Prime Minister as long as there are as good fish in the sea as have been caught out of it.’

There had lately been formed a new Liberal club, established on a broader basis than the Progress, and perhaps with a greater amount of aristocratic support. This had come up since the Duke had been Prime Minister. Certain busy men had never been quite contented with the existing state of things, and had thought that the Liberal party, with such assistance as the club could give it, would be strong enough to rule alone. That the great Liberal party should be impeded in its work and its triumph by such men as Sir Orlando Drought and Sir Timothy Beeswax was odious to the club. All the Pallisers had, from time immemorial, run straight as Liberals, and therefore the club had been unwilling to oppose the Duke personally, though he was the head of the Coalition. And certain members of the Government, Phineas Finn, for instance, Barrington Erle, and Mr Rattler were on the committee of the club. But the club, as a club, was not averse to a discontinuance of the present state of things. Mr Gresham might again become Prime Minister, if he would condescend so far, or Mr Monk. It might be possible that the great Liberal triumph contemplated by the club might not be achieved by the present House;–but the present House must go shortly, and then, with that assistance from a well-organized club, which had lately been so terribly wanting,–the lack of which had made the Coalition necessary,–no doubt the British constituencies would do their duty, and a Liberal Prime Minister, pure and simple, might reign, –almost for ever. With this great future before it, the club was very lukewarm in its support of the present bill. ‘I shall go down and vote for them of course,’ said Mr O’Mahony, ‘just for the look of the thing.’ In saying this Mr O’Mahony expressed the feeling of the club, and the feeling of the Liberal party generally. There was something due to the Duke, but not enough to make it incumbent on his friends to maintain his position as Prime Minister.

It was a great day for Sir Orlando. At half-past four the House was full,–not from any desire to hear Sir Orlando’s arguments against the bill, but because it was felt that a good deal of personal interest would be attached to the debate. If one were asked in these days what gift should a Prime Minister ask first from the fairies, one would name the power of attracting personal friends. Eloquence, if it be too easy, may become almost a curse. Patriotism is suspected, and sometimes sinks to pedantry. A Jove-born intellect is hardly wanted, and clashes with the inferiorities. Industry is exacting. Honesty is unpractical. Truth is easily offended. Dignity will not bend. But the man who can be all things to all men, who has ever a kind word to speak, a pleasant joke to crack, who can forgive all sins, who is ever prepared for friend or foe, but never very bitter to the latter, who forgets not man’s names, and is always ready with little words,–he is the man who will be supported at a crisis such as this that was now in the course of passing. It is for him that men will struggle, and talk, and, if needs be, fight, as though the very existence of the country depended on his political security. The present man would receive no such defence, but still the violent deposition of a Prime Minister is always a memorable occasion.

Sir Orlando made his speech, and, as had been anticipated, it had very little to do with the bill, and was almost exclusively an attack upon his late chief. He thought, he said, that this was an occasion on which they had better come to a direct issue with as little delay as possible. If he rightly read the feeling of the House, no bill of this magnitude coming from the present Ministry would be likely to be passed in an efficient condition. The Duke had frittered away his support in that House, and as a Minister had lost that confidence which a majority of the House had once been willing to place in him. We need not follow Sir Orlando through his speech. He alluded to his own services, and declared that he was obliged to withdraw them because the Duke would not trust him with the management of his own office. He had reason to believe that other gentlemen who had attached themselves to the Duke’s Ministry had found themselves equally crippled by this passion for autocratic rule. Hereupon a loud chorus of disapprobation came from the Treasury bench, which was fully answered by opposing noises from the other side of the House. Sir Orlando declared that he need only point to the fact that the Ministry had been already shivered by the secession of various gentlemen. ‘Only two,’ said a voice. Sir Orlando was turning round to contradict the voice when he was greeted by another. ‘And those the weakest,’ said another voice, which was indubitably that of Larry Fitzgibbon. ‘I will not speak of myself,’ said Sir Orlando pompously, ‘but I am authorized to tell the House that the noble lord who is now the Secretary of State for the Colonies only holds his office till this crisis is passed.’

After that there was some sparring of a very bitter kind between Sir Timothy and Phineas Finn, till at last it seemed that the debate was to degenerate into a war of man against man. Phineas and Erle, and Laurance Fitzgibbon allowed themselves to be lashed into anger, and, as far as words went, had the best of it. But of what use could it be? Every man there had come into the House prepared to vote for or against the Duke of Omnium,–or resolved, like Mr Lupton, not to vote at all, and it was hardly on the cards that a single vote should be turned this way or that by any violence of speaking. ‘Let it pass,’ said Mr Monk in a whisper to Phineas. ‘The fire is not worth the fuel.’

‘I know the Duke’s faults,’ said Phineas, ‘but these men know nothing of his virtues, and when I hear them abuse him, I cannot stand it.’

Early in the night,–before twelve o’clock,–the House divided, and even at that moment of the division no one quite knew how it would go. There would be many who would of course vote against the amendment as being simply desirous of recording their opinion in favour of the bill generally. And there were some who thought that Sir Orlando and his followers had been too forward, and too confident of their own standing in the House, in trying so violent a mode of opposition. It would have been better, these men thought, to have insured success by a gradual and persistent opposition to the bill itself. But they hardly knew how thoroughly men may be alienated by silence and a cold demeanour. Sir Orlando on the division was beaten, but was beaten only by nine. ‘He can’t go on with this bill,’ said Rattler in one of the lobbies of the House. ‘I defy him. The House wouldn’t stand it, you know.’ ‘No minister,’ said Roby, ‘could carry a measure like that with a majority of nine on a vote of confidence!’ The House was of course adjourned, and Mr Monk went at once to Carlton Terrace.

‘I wish it had only been three or four,’ said the Duke, laughing.

‘Why so?’

‘Because there would have been less doubt.’

‘Is there any at present?’

‘Less possibility for doubt, I should say. You would not wish me to make the attempt with such a majority?’

‘I could not do it, Duke.’

‘I quite agree with you. But there will be those who will say that the attempt might be made,–who will accuse me of being faint-hearted because we do not make it.’

‘They will be men who understand nothing of the temper of the House.’

‘Very likely. But still, I wish the majority had only been two or three. There is little more to be said, I suppose.’

‘Very little, your Grace.’

‘We had better meet to-morrow at two, and if possible, I will see her Majesty in the afternoon. Good night, Mr Monk.’

‘Good night, Duke.’

‘My reign is ended. You are a good deal and older man than I, and yet probably yours has yet to begin.’ Mr Monk smiled and shook his head as he left the room, not trusting himself to discuss so large a subject at so late an hour of the night.

Without waiting a moment after his colleague’s departure, the Prime Minister,–for he was still Prime Minister,–went into his wife’s room, knowing that she was waiting up till she should hear the result of the division, and there he found Mrs Finn with her. ‘Is it over?’ asked the Duchess.

‘Yes;–there has been a division. Mr Monk has just been with me.’

‘Well!’

‘We have beaten them, of course, as we always do,’ said the Duke, attempting to be pleasant. ‘You didn’t suppose there was anything to fear? Your husband has always bid you keep up your courage;–has he not, Mrs Finn?’

‘My husband has lost his senses, I think,’ she said. ‘He has taken to such storming and raving about his political enemies that I hardly dare to open my mouth.’

‘Tell what has been done, Plantagenet,’ ejaculated the Duchess.

‘Don’t you be so unreasonable as Mrs Finn, Cora. The House has voted against Sir Orlando’s amendment by a majority of nine.’

‘Only nine!’

‘And I shall cease to be Prime Minister to-morrow.’

‘You don’t mean to say that it’s settled?’

‘Quite settled. The play has been played, and the curtain has fallen, and the lights are being put out, and the poor weary actors may go home to bed.’

‘But on such an amendment surely any majority would have done.’

‘No, my dear. I will not name a number, but nine certainly would not do.’

‘And it is all over?’

‘My Ministry is over, if you mean that.’

‘Then everything is over for me. I shall settle down in the country and build cottages, and mix draughts. You, Marie, will still be going up the tree. If Mr Finn manages well he may come to be Prime Minister some day.

‘He has hardly such ambition, Lady Glen,’

‘The ambition will come fast enough;–will it not, Plantagenet? Let him once begin to dream of it as possible, and the desire will soon be strong enough. How should you feel if it were so?’

‘It is quite impossible,’ said Mrs Finn, gravely.

‘I don’t see why anything is impossible. Sir Orlando will be Prime Minister now, and Sir Timothy Beeswax Lord Chancellor. After that anybody may hope to be anything. Well;–I suppose we may go to bed. Is your carriage here, my dear?’

‘I hope so.’

‘Ring the bell, Plantagenet, for somebody to see her down. Come to lunch to-morrow because I shall have so many groans to utter. What beast, what brutes, what ungrateful wretches men are!– worse than women when they get together in numbers enough to be bold. Why have they deserted you? What have we not done for them. Think of all the new bedroom furniture we sent to Gatherum merely to keep the party together. There were thousands of yards of linen, and it has all been of no use. Don’t you feel like Wolsey, Plantagenet?’

‘Not in the least, my dear. No one will take anything away from me that I own.’

‘For me, I’m almost as much divorced as Catherine, and have had my head cut off as completely as Anne Bullen and the rest of them. Go away, Marie, because I am going to have a cry by myself.’

The Duke himself on that night put Mrs Finn into her carriage; and as he walked with her downstairs he asked her whether she believed the Duchess was in earnest in her sorrow. ‘She so mixes up her mirth and woe together,’ said the Duke, ‘that I myself sometimes can hardly understand her.’

‘I think she does regret it, Duke.’

‘She told me the other day that she would be contented.’

‘A few weeks will make her so. As for your Grace, I hope I may congratulate you.’

‘Oh yes;–I think so. We none of us like to be beaten when we have taken a thing in hand. There is always a little disappointment at first. But, upon the whole, it is better as it is. I hope it will not make your husband unhappy.’

‘Not for his own sake. He will go again into the middle of the scramble and fight on one side or the other. For my own part I think opposition is the pleasantest. Good-night, Duke. I am so sorry that I should have troubled you.’

Then he went alone to his own room, and sat there without moving for a couple of hours. Surely it was a great thing to have been Prime Minister of England for three years,–a prize of which nothing could now rob him. He ought not to be unhappy; and yet he knew himself to be wretched and disappointed. It had never occurred to him to be proud of being a duke, or to think of his wealth otherwise than a chance incident of his life, advantageous indeed, but by no means a source of honour. And he had been aware that he had owned his first seat in Parliament to his birth, and probably also his first introduction to official life. An heir to a dukedom, if he will only work, may almost with certainty find himself received into one or other regiment in Downing Street. It had not in his early days been with him as it had with his friends Mr Monk and Phineas Finn, who had worked their way from the very ranks. But even a duke cannot become Prime Minister by favour. Surely he had done something of which he might be proud. And so he tried to console himself.

But to have done something was nothing to him,–nothing to his personal happiness,–unless there was also something left for him to do. How should it be with him now,–now for the future? Would men ever listen to him again, or allow him again to work in their behoof, as he used to do in his happy days in the House of Commons? He feared that it was all over for him, and that for the rest of his days he must simply be the Duke of Omnium.

CHAPTER 74

‘I AM DISGRACED AND SHAMED.’

Soon after the commencement of the Session Arthur Fletcher became a constant visitor in Manchester Square, dining with the old barrister almost constantly on Sundays, and not unfrequently on other days when the House and his general engagements would permit it. Between him and Emily’s father there was no secret and no misunderstanding. Mr Wharton quite understood that the young member of Parliament was earnestly purposed to marry his daughter, and Fletcher was sure of all the assistance and support which Mr Wharton could give him. The name of Lopez was very rarely used between them. It had been tacitly agreed that there was no need that it should be mentioned. The man had come like a destroying angel between them and their fondest hopes. Neither could ever be what he would have been had the man never appeared to destroy their happiness. But the man had gone away, not without a tragedy that was appalling;–and each thought that, as regarded him, he and the person in whom they were interested could be taught to seem to forget him. ‘It is not love,’ said the father, ‘but a feeling of shame.’ Arthur Fletcher shook his head, not quite agreeing with this. It was not that he feared that she loved the memory of her late husband. Such love was, he thought, impossible. But there was, he believed, something more than the feeling which her father described as shame. There was pride also;–a determination in her own bosom not to confess the fault she had made in giving herself to him whom she must now think to have been so much the least worthy of her two suitors. ‘Her fortune will not be what I once promised you,’ said the old man plaintively.

‘I do not remember that I ever asked you as to her fortune,’ Arthur replied.

‘Certainly not. If you had I would not have told you. But as I named a sum, it is right that I should explain to you that that man succeeded in lessening it by six or seven thousand pounds.’

‘If that were all!’

‘And I have promised Sir Alured that Everett, as his heir, should have the use of a considerable portion of his share without waiting for my death. It is odd that the one of my children from whom I certainly expected the greater trouble should have fallen so entirely on his feet; and that the other–; well, let us hope for the best. Everett seems to have taken up with Wharton as though it belonged to him already. And Emily–! Well, my dear boy, let us hope that it may come right yet. You are not drinking your wine. Yes,–pass the bottle. I’ll have another before I go upstairs.’

In this way the time went by till Emily returned to town. The Ministry had just then resigned, but I think that ‘this great reactionary success,’ as it was called by the writer in the “People’s Banner”, affected one member of the Lower House much less than the return to London of Mrs Lopez. Arthur Fletcher had determined that he would renew his suit as soon as a year should have expired since the tragedy which had made his love a widow;– and that year had now passed away. He had known the day well,– as had she, when she passed the morning weeping in her own room at Wharton. Now he questioned himself whether a year would suffice,–whether both in mercy to her and with a view of realizing his own hopes he should give her some longer time for recovery. But he had told himself that it should be done at the end of a year, and as he had allowed no one to talk him out of his word, so neither could he be untrue to it himself. But it became to him a deep matter of business, a question of great difficulty, how he should arrange the necessary interview,– whether he should plead his case with her at their first meeting, or whether he had better allow her to become accustomed to his presence in the house. His mother had attempted to ridicule him, because he was, as she said, afraid of a woman. He well remembered that he had never been afraid of Emily Wharton when they had been quite young,–little more than a boy and girl together. Then he had told her of his love over and over again, and had found almost a comfortable luxury in urging her to say a word, which she had never indeed said, but which probably in those days he still hoped she would say. And occasionally he had feigned to be angry with her, and had tempted her on to little quarrels with a boyish idea that a quick reconciliation would perhaps throw her into his arms. But now it seemed to him that an age had passed since those days. His love had certainly not faded. There had never been a moment when that had been on the wing. But now the azure plumage of his love had become grey as the wings of a dove, and the gorgeousness of his dreams had sobered into hopes and fears which were a constant burden to his heart. There was time enough, still time enough for happiness if she would yield;–and time enough for the dull pressure of unsatisfied aspirations should she persist in her refusal.

At last he saw her, almost by accident, and that meeting certainly was not fit for the purpose of his suit. He called at Stone Buildings the day after her arrival, and found her at her father’s chambers. She had come there keeping some appointment with him, and certainly had not expected to meet her lover. He was confused and hardly able to say a word to account for his presence, but she greeted him with almost sisterly affection, saying some word of Longbarns and his family, telling him how Everett, to Alured’s great delight, had been sworn in as a magistrate for the County, and how at the last hunt meeting John Fletcher had been asked to take the County hounds because Lord Weobly at seventy-five had declared himself to be unable any longer to ride as a master of hounds ought to ride. All these things Arthur had of course heard, such news being too important to be kept long from him; but on none of these subjects had he much to say. He stuttered and stammered, and quickly went away; –not, however, before he had promised to come to dine as usual on the next Sunday, and not without observing that the anniversary of that fatal day of release had done something to lighten the sombre load of mourning which the widow had hitherto worn.

Yes;–he would dine there on the Sunday, but how would it be with him then? Mr Wharton never went out of the house on a Sunday evening, and could hardly be expected to leave his own drawing-room for the sake of giving a lover an opportunity. No; –he must wait till that evening should have passed, and then make the occasion for himself as best he might. The Sunday came and the dinner was eaten, and after dinner there was a single bottle of port and the single bottle of claret. ‘How do you think she is looking?’ asked the father. ‘She was as pale as death before we got her down into the country.’

‘Upon my word, sir,’ said he, ‘I’ve hardly looked at her. It is not a matter of looks now, as it used to be. It has got beyond that. It is not that I am indifferent to seeing a pretty face, or that I have no longer an opinion of my own about a woman’s figure. But there grows up, I think, a longing which almost kills that consideration.’

‘To me she is as beautiful as ever,’ said the father proudly.

Fletcher did manage, when in the drawing-room to talk for a while about John and the hounds, and then went away, having resolved that he would come again on the very next day. Surely she would not give an order that he should be denied admittance. She had been too calm, too even, to confident of herself for that. Yes; –he would come and tell her plainly what he had to say. He would tell it with all the solemnity of which he was capable, with a few words, and those the strongest of which he could use. Should she refuse him;–as he almost knew that she would at first,–then he would tell her of her father and of the wishes of all their joint friends. ‘Nothing,’ he would say to her, ‘nothing but personal dislike can justify you in refusing to heal many wounds.’ As he fixed on these words he failed to remember how little probable it is that a lover should ever be able to use the phrases which he arranges.

On the Monday he came, and asked for Mrs Lopez, slurring over the word as best he could. The butler said his mistress was at home. Since the death of the man he had so thoroughly despised, the old servant had never called her Mrs Lopez. Arthur was shown upstairs, and found the lady he sought,–but he found Mrs Roby also. It may be remembered that Mrs Roby, after the tragedy, had been refused admittance into Mr Wharton’s house. Since that there had been some correspondence, and a feeling had prevailed that the woman was not to be quarrelled with forever. ‘I did not do it, papa, because of her,’ Emily said with some scorn, and that scorn had procured Mrs Roby’s pardon. She was now making a morning call, and suiting her conversation to the black dress of her niece. Arthur was horrified at seeing her. Mrs Roby had always been to him odious, not only as a personal enemy but as a vulgar woman. He, at any rate, attributed on her a great part of the evil that had been done, feeling sure that had there been no house round the corner, Emily Wharton would never have become Mrs Lopez. As it was he was forced to shake hands with her, and forced to listen to the funereal tone in which Mrs Roby asked him if he did not think that Mrs Lopez looked much improved since her sojourn in Hertfordshire. He shrank at the sound, and then, in order that it might not be repeated, took occasion to show that he was allowed to call his early playmate by her Christian name. Mrs Roby, thinking that she ought to check him, remarked that Mrs Lopez’s return was a great thing for Mr Wharton. Thereupon Arthur Fletcher seized his hat off the ground, wished them both good-bye, and hurried out of the room. ‘What a very odd manner he has taken up since he became a Member of Parliament,’ said Mrs Roby.

Emily was silent for a moment, and then with an effort,–with intense pain,–she said a word or two which she thought had better be at once spoken. ‘He went because he does not like to hear that name.’

‘Good gracious!’

‘And papa does not like it. Don’t say a word about it, aunt; pray don’t,–but call me Emily.’

‘Are you going to be ashamed of your name?’

‘Never mind, aunt. If you think it wrong, you must stay away;– but I will not have papa wounded.’

‘Oh;–if Mr Wharton wishes it;–of course.’ That evening Mrs Roby told Dick Roby, her husband, what an old fool Mr Wharton was.

The next day quite early, Fletcher was again at the house and was again admitted upstairs. The butler, no doubt, knew well enough why he came, and also knew that the purport of his coming had at any rate the sanction of Mr Wharton. The room was empty when he was shown into it, but she came to him very soon. ‘I went away yesterday rather abruptly,’ he said. ‘I hope you did not think me rude.’

‘Oh no.’

‘Your aunt was here, and I had something I wished to say but could not say it very well before her.’

‘I knew that she had driven you away. You and Aunt Harriet were never great friends.’

‘Never;–but I will forgive her everything. I will forgive all the injuries that have been done me if you will now do as I ask you.’

Of course she knew what it was he was about to ask. When he had left her at Longbarns without saying a word of his love, without giving her a hint whereby she might allow herself to think that he intended to renew his suit, then she had wept because it was so. Though her resolution had been quite firm as to the duty which was incumbent on her of remaining in her desolate condition of almost nameless widowhood, yet she had been unable to refrain from bitter tears because he also had seemed to see that such was her duty. But now again, knowing that the request was coming, feeling once more confident of the constancy of his love, she was urgent with herself as to that heavy duty. She would be womanly, dead to all shame, almost inhuman, were she to allow herself again to indulge in love after all the havoc she had made. She had been little more than a bride when that husband, for whom she had often been forced to blush, had been driven by the weight of his misfortunes and disgraces to destroy himself! By the marriage she had made she had overwhelmed her whole family with dishonour. She had done it with a persistency of perverse self- will which she herself could not now look back on without wonder and horror. She, too, should have died as well as he;–only that death had not been within the compass of her powers as of his. How the could she forget it all, and wipe it away from her mind, as she would figures from a slate with a wet towel? How could it be fit that she should again be a bride with such a spectre of a husband haunting her memory? She had known that the request was to be made when he took his sudden departure. She had known it well, when just now the servant told her that Mr Fletcher was in the drawing-room below. But she was quite certain of the answer she must make. ‘I should be sorry you should ask me anything I cannot do,’ she said in a very low voice.

‘I will ask you nothing for which I have not your father’s sanction.’

‘The time has gone by, Arthur, in which I might well have been guided by my father. There comes a time when personal feelings must be stronger than a father’s authority. Papa cannot see me with my own eyes, he cannot understand what I feel. It is simply this,–that he would have me to be other than I am. But I am what I have made myself.’

‘You have not heard me as yet. You will hear me?’

‘Oh, yes.’

‘I have loved you ever since I was a boy.’ He paused as though he expected that she would make some answer to this; but of course there was nothing she could say. ‘I have been true to you since we were together almost as children.’

‘It is your nature to be true.’

‘In this matter, at any rate. I shall never change. I never for a moment had a doubt about my love. There never has been anyone else whom I have ventured to compare with you. Then came that great trouble. Emily, you must let me speak freely this once, as so much, to me at least, depends on it.’

‘Say what you will, Arthur. Do not wound me more than you can help.’

‘God knows how willingly I would heal every wound without a word if it could be done. I don’t know whether you ever thought what I suffered when he came among us and robbed me,–well, I will not say robbed me of your love, because it was not mine–but took away with him that which I had been trying to win.’

‘I did not think a man would feel like that.’

‘Why shouldn’t a man feel as well as a woman? I had set my heart on having you for my wife. Can any desire be nearer to a man than that? Then he came. Well, dearest, surely I may say that he was not worthy of you.’

‘We were neither of us worthy,’ she said.

‘I need not tell you that we all grieved. It seemed to us down in Hertfordshire as though a black cloud had come upon us. We could not speak of you, nor yet could we be altogether silent.’

‘Of course you condemned me,–as an outcast.’

‘Did I write to you as though you were an outcast? Did I treat you when I saw you as an outcast? When I come to you to-day, is that proof that I think you to be an outcast? I have never deceived you, Emily.’

‘Never.’

‘Then you will believe me when I say that through it all not one word of reproach or contumely has ever passed my lips in regard to you. That you should have given yourself to one whom I could think worthy of you, was, of course, a great sorrow. Had he been a prince of men it would have of course been a sorrow to me. How it went with you during your married life I will not ask.’

‘I was unhappy. I would tell you everything if I could. I was very unhappy.’

‘Then came–the end.’ She was now weeping with her face buried in her handkerchief. ‘I would spare you if I knew how, but there are some things which must be said.’

‘No;–no. I will bear it all–from you.’

‘Well! His success had not lessened my love. Though then I could have no hope,–though you were utterly removed from me,– all that could not change me. There it was,–as though my arm or my leg had been taken from me. It was bad to live without an arm or a leg, but there was no help. I went on with my life and tried not to look like a whipped cur;–though John from time to time would tell me that I failed. But now;–now that is again all changed,–what would you have me do now? It may be that after all my limb may be restored to me, that I may be again as other men are, whole, and sound, and happy;–so happy! When it may possibly be within my reach am I not to look for my happiness?’ He paused, but she wept on without speaking a word. ‘There are those who will say that I should wait till all these signs of woe have been laid aside. But why should I wait? There has come a great blot on your life, and is it not well that it should be covered as quickly as possible?’

‘It can never be covered.’

‘You mean that it can never be forgotten. No doubt there are passages in our life which we cannot forget, though we bury them in the deepest silence. All this can never be driven out of your memory,–nor from mine. But it need not therefore blacken our lives. In such a condition we should not be ruled by what the world thinks.’

‘Not at all. I care nothing for what the world thinks. I am below all that. It is what I think of myself,–of myself.’

‘Will you think of no one else? Are any of your thoughts for me, –or for your father?’

‘Oh yes;–for my father.’

‘I need hardly tell you what he wishes. You must know how you can best give him back the comfort he has lost.’

‘But, Arthur, even for him I cannot do everything.’

‘There is one question to be asked,’ he said, rising from her feet and standing before her;–‘but one; and what you do should depend entirely on the answer which you may be able truly make to that.’

This he said so solemnly that he startled her.

‘What question, Arthur?’

‘Do you love me?’ To this question at the moment she could make no reply. ‘Of course I know that you did not love me when you married him.’

‘Love is not all of one kind.’

‘You know what love I mean. You did not love me then. You could not have loved me,–though, perhaps, I thought I had deserved your love. But love will change and memory will some times bring back old fancies when the world has been stern and hard. When we were very young I think you loved me. Do you remember seven years ago at Longbarns, when they parted us and sent me away, because,– because we were so young? They did not tell us then, but I think you knew. I know that I knew, and went nigh to swear that I would drown myself. You loved me then, Emily.’

‘I was a child then.’

‘Now you are not a child. Do you love me now,–to-day? If so, give me your hand, and the past be buried in silence. All this has come and gone, and has nearly made us old. But there is life before us yet, and if you are to me as I am to you it is better that our lives should be lived together.’ Then he stood before her with his hand stretched out.

‘I cannot do it,’ she said.

‘And why?’

‘I cannot be other than the wretched thing I have made myself.’

‘But do you love me?’

‘I cannot analyse my heart. Love you;–yes! I have always loved you. Everything about you is dear to me. I can triumph in your triumphs, rejoice at your joy, weep at your sorrows, be ever anxious that all good things may come to you;–but, Arthur, I cannot be your wife.’

‘Not though it would make us all happy,–Fletchers and Whartons all alike?’

‘Do you think I have not thought it over? Do you think that I have forgotten your first letter? Knowing your heart, as I do know it, do you imagine that I have spent a day, an hour, for months past, without asking myself what answer I should make to you if the sweet constancy of your nature should bring you again to me? I have trembled when I have heard your voice. My heart has beat at the sound of your footsteps as though it would burst! Do you think I have never told myself what I had thrown away. But it is gone, and it is not now within my reach.’

‘It is, it is,’ he said, throwing himself on his knees, and twining his arms around her.

‘No;–no;–no;–never. I am disgraced and shamed. I have lain among the pots till I am foul and blackened. Take your arms away. They shall not be defiled,’ she said as she sprang to her feet. ‘You shall not have the thing that he has left.’

‘Emily;–it is the only thing in all the world that I crave.’

‘Be a man and conquer your love,–as I will. Get it under your feet and press it to death. Tell yourself that it is shameful and must be abandoned. That you, Arthur Fletcher, should marry the widow of that man,–the woman that he had thrust so far into the mire that she can never again be clean;–you, the chosen one, the bright star among us all;–you, whose wife should be the fairest, the purest, the tenderest of us all, a flower that has yet been hardly breathed on. While I–Arthur,’ she said, ‘I know my duty better than that. I will not seek an escape from my punishment in that way,–nor will I allow you to destroy yourself. You have my word as a woman that it shall not be so. Now I do not mind your knowing whether I love you or no.’ He stood silent before her, not able for the moment to go on with his prayer. ‘And now,’ she said, ‘God bless you, and give you some fair and happy wife. And, Arthur, do not come again to me. If you will let it be so, I shall have delight in seeing you;– but not if you come as you have come now. And, Arthur, spare me with papa. Do not let him think that it is all my fault that I cannot do the thing that he wishes.’ Then she left the room before he could say another word to her.

But it was all her fault. No;–in that direction he could not spare her. It must be told to her father, though he doubted his own power of describing all that had been said. ‘Do not come again to me,’ she had said. At the moment he had been left speechless; but if there was one thing fixed in his mind, it was the determination to come again. He was sure now, not only of love that might have sufficed,–but of hot, passionate love. She had told him that her heart had beat at his footsteps, and that she had trembled as she listened to his voice,–and yet she had expected that he would not come again! But there was a violence of decision about the woman which made him dread that he might still come in vain. She was so warped from herself by the conviction of her great mistake, so prone to take shame to herself for her own error, so keenly alive to the degradation to which she had been submitted, that it might yet be impossible to teach her that, though her husband had been vile and she mistaken, yet she had not been soiled by his baseness.

He went at once to the old barrister’s chambers and told him the result of the meeting. ‘She is still a fool,’ said the father, not understanding at second-hand the depths of his daughter’s feeling.

‘No, sir,–not that. She felt herself degraded by his degradation. If it be possible we must save her from that.’

‘She did degrade herself.’

‘Not as she means it. She is not degraded in my eyes.’

‘Why should she not take the only means in her power of rescuing herself and rescuing us all from the evil that she did? She owes it you, me, and to her brother.’

‘I would hardly wish her to come to me in payment of such a debt.’

‘There is no room left,’ said Mr Wharton angrily, ‘for soft sentimentality. Well;–she must take her bed as she makes it. It is very hard on me, I know. Considering what she used to be, it is marvellous to me that she should have so little idea left of doing her duty to others.’

Arthur Fletcher found that the barrister was at the moment too angry to hear reason, or to be made to understand anything of the feelings of mixed love and admiration with which he was animated at the moment. He was obliged therefore to content himself with assuring the father that he did not intend to give up the pursuit of his daughter.

CHAPTER 75

THE GREAT WHARTON ALLIANCE.

When Mr Wharton got home on that day he said not a word to Emily as to Arthur Fletcher. He had resolved to take various courses; –first to tell her roundly that she was neglecting her duty to herself and to her family, and that he would no longer take her part and be her good friend unless she would consent to marry the man whom she had confessed that she loved. But as he thought of this he became aware,–first that he could not carry out such a threat, and then that he would lack even the firmness to make it. There was something in her face, something even in her dress, something in her whole manner to himself, which softened him and reduced him to vassalage directly he saw her. Then he determined to throw himself on her compassion and to implore her to put an end to all this misery by making herself happy. But as he drew near home he found himself unable to do even this. How is a father to beseech his widowed daughter to give herself away in a second marriage? And therefore when he entered the house and found her waiting for him he said nothing. At first she looked at him wistfully,–anxious to learn by his face whether her lover had been with him. But when he spoke not a word, simply kissing her in his usual quiet way, she became cheerful in a manner and communicative. ‘Papa,’ she said, ‘I have had a letter from Mary.’

‘Well, my dear.’

‘Just a nice chatty letter,–full of Everett, of course.’

‘Everett is a great man now.’

‘I am sure that you are very glad that he is what he is. Will you see Mary’s letter?’ Mr Wharton was not specially given to reading young ladies’ correspondence, and did not know why this particular letter should be offered to him. ‘You don’t suspect anything at Wharton, do you?’ she asked.

‘Suspect anything! No; I don’t suspect anything.’ But now, having had his curiosity aroused, he took the letter which was offered to him and read it. The letter was as follows:

Wharton, Thursday.
DEAREST EMILY,
We all hope that you had a pleasant journey up to London, and that Mr Wharton is quite well. Your brother Everett came over to Longbarns the day after you started and drove me back to Wharton in the dog-cart. It was such a pleasant journey, though, now I remember, it rained all the way. But Everett has always so much to say that I didn’t mind the rain. I think it will end in John taking the hounds. He says he won’t because he does not wish to be the slave of the whole county;–but he says it in that sort of way that we all think he means to do it. Everett tells him that he ought, because he is the only hunting man on this side of the county who can afford to do without feeling it much; and of course what Everett says will go a long way with him. Sarah,–(Sarah was John Fletcher’s wife),–is rather against it. But if he makes up his mind she’ll be sure to turn round. Of course it makes us all very anxious at present to know how it is to end, for the Master of the Hounds always is the leading man in our part of the world. Papa went to the bench at Ross yesterday and took Everett with him. It was the first time that Everett had sat there. He says I am to tell his father he has not hung anybody as yet.

They have already begun to cut down, or what they call stubb up, Barnton Spinnies. Everett said that it is no good keeping it as a wood, and papa agreed. So it is to go into the home farm, and Griffiths is to pay rent for it. I don’t like having it cut down, as the boys always used to get nuts there, but Everett says it won’t do to keep woods for little boys to get nuts.

Mary Stocking has been very ill since you went, and I’m afraid she won’t last long. When they get to be so very bad with rheumatism I almost think it’s wrong to pray for them, because they are in so much pain. We thought at one time that mamma’s ointment had done her good, but when we came to inquire we found that she had swallowed it. Wasn’t it dreadful? But it didn’t seem to do her any harm. Everett says that it wouldn’t make any difference which she did.

Papa is beginning to be afraid that Everett is a Radical. But I’m sure he’s not. He says he is as good a Conservative as there is in all Hertfordshire, only that he likes to know what is to be conserved. Papa said after dinner yesterday that everything English should be maintained. Everett said that according to that we should have kept the Star Chamber. ‘Of course I would,’ said papa. Then they went at it hammer and tongs. Everett had the best of it. At any rate he talked the longest. But I do hope he is not a Radical. No country gentleman ought to be a Radical. Ought he, dear?

Mrs Fletcher says you are to get the lozenges at Squire’s in Oxford Street, and be sure to ask for the Vade mecum lozenges. She is all in a flutter about those hounds. She says she hopes John will do nothing of the kind because of the expense; but we all know that she would like him to have them. The subscription is not very good, only 1,500 pounds, and it would cost him ever so much a year. But everybody says he is very rich and that he ought to do it. If you see Arthur give him our love. Of course a member of Parliament is too busy to write letters. But I don’t think Arthur was ever good at writing. Everett says that men never ought to write letters. Give my love to Mr Wharton.
I am, dearest Emily,
Your most affectionate Cousin,
MARY WHARTON

‘Everett is a fool,’ said Mr Wharton as soon as he had read the letter.

‘Why is he a fool, papa?’

‘Because he will quarrel with Sir Alured about politics before he knows where he is. What business has a young fellow like that to have an opinion either one side or the other, before his betters?’

‘But Everett always has strong opinions.’

‘It didn’t matter as long as he only talked nonsense at a club in London, but how he’ll break that old man’s heart.’

‘But, papa, don’t you see anything else?’

‘I see that John Fletcher is going to make an ass of himself and spend a thousand a year in keeping a pack of hounds for other people to ride after.’

‘I think I see something else besides that.’

‘What do you see?’

‘Would it annoy you if Everett was to become engaged to Mary?’

Then Mr Wharton whistled. ‘To be sure she does put his name into every line of the letter. No; it wouldn’t annoy me. I don’t see why he shouldn’t marry his second cousin if he likes. Only if he is engaged to her, I think it odd that he shouldn’t write and tell us.’

‘I’m sure she is not engaged to him as yet. She wouldn’t write all in that way if she were engaged. Everybody would be told at once, and Sir Alured would never be able to keep it a secret. Why should there be a secret? But I’m sure that she is very fond of him. Mary would never write about any man in that way unless she were beginning to be attached to him.’

About ten days after this there came two letters from Wharton Hall to Manchester Square, the shortest of which shall be given first. It ran as follows:

MY DEAR FATHER,
I have proposed to my cousin Mary, and she has accepted me. Everybody here seems to like the idea. I hope it will not displease you. Of course you and Emily will come down. I will tell you when the day is fixed. Your affectionate Son,
EVERETT WHARTON

This the old man read as he sat at breakfast with his daughter opposite to him, while Emily was reading a very much longer letter from the same house. ‘So it’s going to be just as you guessed,’ he said.

‘I was quite sure of it, papa. Is that from Everett? Is he very happy?’

‘Upon my word, I can’t say whether he’s happy or not. If he had got a new horse he would have written at much greater length about it. It seems, however, to be quite fixed.’

‘Oh yes. This is from Mary. She is happy at any rate. I suppose men never say so much about these things as women.’

‘May I see Mary’s letter?’

‘I don’t think it would be quite fair, papa. It’s only a girl’s rhapsody about the man she loves,–very nice and womanly, but not intended for anyone but me. It does not seem that they mean to wait very long.’

‘Why should they wait? Is any day fixed?’

‘Mary says that Everett talks about the middle of May. Of course you will go down.’

‘We must both go.’

‘You will at any rate. Don’t promise for me just at present. It must make Sir Alured very happy. It is almost the same as finding himself at last with a son of his own. I suppose they will live at Wharton altogether now,–unless Everett gets into Parliament.’

But the reader may see the young lady’s letter, though her future father-in-law was not permitted to do so, and will perceive that there was a paragraph at the close of it which perhaps was more conducive to Emily’s secrecy than her feelings as to the sacred obligations of female correspondence.

Monday, Wharton.
DEAREST EMILY,
I wonder whether you will be much surprised at the news I have to tell you. You cannot be more so that I am at having to write it. It has all been so very sudden that I almost feel ashamed of myself. Everett has proposed to me, and I have accepted him. There;–now you know it all. Though you never can know how very dearly I love him and how thoroughly I admire him, I do think that he is everything that a man ought to be, and that I am the most fortunate young woman in the world. Only isn’t it odd that I should always have to live my life in the same house, and never change my name,–just like a man, or an old maid? But I don’t mind that because I do love him so dearly and because he is so good. He has written to Mr Wharton. I know. I was sitting by him and his letter didn’t take him a minute. But he says that long letters about such things only give trouble. I hope you won’t think my letter troublesome. He is not sitting by me now, but has gone over to Longbarns to help settle about the hounds. John is going to have them after all. I wish it hadn’t happened just at this time because all the gentlemen do think so much about it. Of course Everett is one of the committee.

Papa and mamma are both very, very glad of it. Of course it is nice for them, as it will keep Everett and me here. If I had married anybody else,–though I am sure I never should,–she would have been very lonely. And of course papa likes to think that Everett is already one of us. I hope they will never quarrel about politics, but as Everett says, the world does change as it goes on, and young men and old men never will think quite the same about things. Everett told papa the other day that if he could be put back a century he would be a Radical. Then there were ever so many words. But Everett always laughs, and at last papa comes round.

I can’t tell you, my dear, what a fuss we are in already about it all. Everett wants our marriage early in May, so that we may have two months in Switzerland before London is what he calls turned loose. And papa says that there is no use in delaying, because he gets older every day. Of course that is true of everybody. So that we are all in flutter about getting things. Mamma did talk of going up to town, but I believe they have things quite as good at Hereford. Sarah, when she was married, had all her things from London, but they say that there has been a great change since that. I am sure I think that you may get anything you want at Muddocks and Cramble’s. But mamma says I am to have my veil from Howell and James’s.

Of course you and Mr Wharton will come. I shan’t think it any marriage without. Papa and mama talk of it as quite of course. You know how fond papa is of the bishop. I think he will marry us. I own I should like to be married by a bishop. It would make it so sweet and so solemn. Mr Higgenbottom could of course assist;–but he is such an odd old man, with his snuff and his spectacles always tumbling off, that I shouldn’t like to have no one else. I have often thought that if it were only for marrying people we ought to have a nicer rector at Wharton.

Almost all the tenants have been to wish me joy. They are very fond of Everett already, and now they feel that there will never be any very great change. I do think it is the very best thing that could be done, even if it were not that I am so thoroughly in love with him. I didn’t think I should ever be able to own that I was in love with a man; but now I feel quite proud of it. I don’t mind telling you because he is your brother, and I think that you will be glad of it.

He talks very often about you. Of course you know what it is that we all wish. I love Arthur Fletcher almost as much as if he were my brother. He is my sister’s brother-in-law, and if he could become my husband’s brother-in-law too, I should be so happy. Of course we all know that he wishes it. Write immediately to wish me joy. Perhaps you could go to Howell and James’s about the veil. And promise to come to us in May. Sarah says the veil should cost about thirty pounds. Dearest, dearest Emily,
I shall soon be your most affectionate sister, MARY WHARTON

Emily’s answer was full of warm, affectionate congratulations. She had much to say in favour of Everett. She promised to use all her little skill at Howell and James’s. She expressed a hope that the overtures to be made in regard to the bishop might be successful. And she made kind remarks even as to Muddocks and Crumble. But she would not promise that she herself would be at Wharton on the happy day. ‘Dear Mary,’ she said, ‘remember what I have suffered, and that I cannot be quite as other people are. I could not stand at your marriage in black clothes,–nor should I have the courage even if I had the will to dress myself in others.’ None of the Whartons had come to her wedding. There was no feeling of anger now left as to that. She was quite aware that they had done right to stay away. But the very fact that it had been right that they should stay away would make it wrong that the widow of Ferdinand Lopez should now assist at the marriage of one Wharton to another. This was all that a marriage ought to be, whereas that had been–all that a marriage ought not to be. In answer to the paragraph about Arthur Fletcher Emily Lopez had not a word to say.

Soon after this, early in April, Everett came up to town. Though his bride might be content to get her bridal clothes in Hereford, none but a London tailor could decorate him properly for such an occasion. During these last weeks Arthur Fletcher had not been seen at Manchester Square; nor had his name been mentioned there by Mr Wharton. Of anything that may have passed between them Emily was altogether ignorant. She observed, or thought that she observed, that her father was more silent with her,–perhaps less tender than he had been since the day on which her husband had perished. His manner of life was the same. He almost always dined at home in order that she might not be alone, and made no complaint as to her conduct. But she could see that he was unhappy, and she knew the cause of his grief. ‘I think, papa,’ she said one day, ‘that it would be better that I should go away.’ This was on the day before Everett’s arrival,–of which, however, he had given no notice.

‘Go away! Where would you go to?’

‘It does not matter. I do not make you happy.’

‘What do you mean? Who says that I am not happy? Why do you talk like that?’

‘Do not be angry with me. Nobody says so. I can see it well enough. I know how good you are to me, but I am making your life wretched. I am a wet blanket to you, and yet I cannot help myself. If I could go somewhere, where I could be of use.’

‘I don’t know what you mean. This is your proper home.’

‘No;–it is not my home. I ought to have forfeited it. I ought to go where I could work and be of some use in the world.’

‘You might use it if you chose, my dear. Your proper career is before you if you would condescend to accept it. It is not for me to persuade you, but I can see and feel the truth. Till you can bring yourself to do that, your days will be blighted,–and so will mine. You have made one great mistake in life. Stop a moment. I do not speak often, but I wish you to listen to me now. Such mistakes do generally produce misery and ruin in all who are concerned. With you it chances that it may be otherwise. You can put your foot again upon the firm ground and recover everything. Of course there must be a struggle. One person has to struggle with circumstances, another with his foes, and a third with his own feelings. I can understand that there should be a struggle with you; but it ought to be made. You ought to be brave enough and strong enough to conquer your regrets, and to begin again. In no other way can you do anything for me or for yourself. To talk of going away is childish nonsense. Whither would you go? I shall not urge you any more, but I would not have you talk to me in that way.’ Then he got up and left the room and the house and went down to his club,–in order that she might think of what he had said in solitude.

And she did think of it;–but still continually with an assurance to herself that her father did not understand her feelings. The career of which he spoke was no doubt open to her, but she could not regard it as that which it was proper that she should fulfil, as he did. When she told her lover that she had lain among the pots till she was black and defiled, she expressed in the strongest language that which was her real conviction. He did not think her to have been defiled,–or at any rate thought that she might again bear the wings of a dove; but she felt it, and therefore knew herself to be unfit. The next morning, when he came into the parlour where she was already sitting, she looked up at him almost reproachfully. Did he think that a woman was a piece of furniture which you could mend, and re-varnish, and fit out with new ornaments, and then send out for use, second-hand indeed, but for all purposes good as new?

Then, while she was in this frame of mind, Everett came in upon her unawares, and with his almost boisterous happiness succeeded for a while in changing the current of her thoughts. He was of course now uppermost in his own thoughts. The last few months had made so much of him that he might be excused for being unable to sink himself in the presence of others. He was the heir to the baronetcy,–and to the double fortunes of the two old men. And he was going to be married in a manner as everyone told him to increase the glory and stability of the family. ‘It’s all nonsense about your not coming down,’ he said. She smiled and shook her head. ‘I can only tell you that it will give the greatest offence to everyone. If you knew how much they talk about you down there I don’t think you would like to hurt them.’

‘Of course I would not like to hurt them.’

‘And considering that you have no other brother–‘

‘Oh, Everett!’

‘I think more about it, perhaps, than you do. I think you owe it me to come down. You will never probably have another chance of being present at your brother’s marriage.’ This he said in a tone that was almost lachrymose.

‘A wedding, Everett, should be merry.’

‘I don’t know about that. It is a very serious sort of thing, to my way of thinking. When Mary got your letter it nearly broke her heart. I think I have a right to expect it, and if you don’t come I shall feel myself injured. I don’t see what is the use of having a family if the members of it do not stick together. What would you think if I were to desert you?’

‘Desert you, Everett!’

Well, yes;–it is something of the kind. I have made my request, and you can comply with it or not as you please.’

‘I will go,’ she said very slowly. Then she left him and went to her own room to think in what description of garments she could appear at a wedding with the least violence to the condition of her life.

‘I have got her to say she’ll come,’ he said to his father that evening. ‘If you leave her to me, I’ll bring her round.’

Soon after that,–within a day or two,–there came out a paragraph in one of the fashionable newspapers of the day, saying that an alliance had been arranged between the heir to the Wharton title and property and the daughter of the present baronet. I think that this had probably originated in the club gossip. I trust it did not spring directly from the activity or ambition of Everett himself.

CHAPTER 76

WHO WILL IT BE?

For the first day or two after the resignation of the Ministry the Duchess appeared to take no further notice of the matter. An ungrateful world had repudiated her husband, and he had foolishly assisted and given way to the repudiation. All her grand aspirations were at an end. All her triumphs were over. And worse than that, there was present to her a conviction that she had never really triumphed. There never had come the happy moment in which she had felt herself to be dominant over other women. She had toiled, struggled, she had battled and occasionally submitted; and yet there was present to her a feeling that she had stood higher in public estimation as Lady Glencora Palliser,–whose position had been all her own and had not depended on her husband,–than now she had done as the Duchess of Omnium, and wife of the Prime Minister of England. She had meant to be something, she knew not what, greater than had been the wives of other Prime Ministers and other Dukes, and now she felt that in her failure she had been almost ridiculous. And the failure, she thought, had been his,–or hers,–rather than that of circumstances. If he had been less scrupulous and more persistent it might have been different,–of if she had been more discreet. Sometimes she felt hew own failing so violently as to acquit him almost entirely. At other times she was almost beside herself with anger because all her losses seemed to have arisen from want of stubbornness on his part. When he had told her that he and his followers had determined to resign because they had beaten their foes by only a majority of nine, she took it into her head that he was in fault. Why should he go while his supporters were more numerous than his opponents? It was useless to bid him think it over again. Though she was far from understanding all the circumstances of the game, she did know that he could not remain after having arranged with his colleagues that he would go. So she became cross and sullen, and while he was going to Windsor and back and setting his house in order, and preparing the way for his successor,–whoever that successor might be,–she was moody and silent, dreaming over some impossible condition of things in accordance with which he might have remained Prime Minister–almost for ever.

On the Sunday after the fatal division,–the division which the Duchess would not allow to have been fatal,–she came across him somewhere in the house. She had hardly spoken to him since he had come into her room that night and told her that all was over. She had said that she was unwell and had kept out of sight, and he had been here and there, between Windsor and the Treasury Chambers, and had been glad to escape from her ill-humour. But she could not endure any longer the annoyance of having to get all her news from Mrs Finn,–second hand, or third hand, and now found herself driven to capitulate. ‘Well,’ she said, ‘how is it all going to be? I suppose you do not know or you would have told me?’

‘There is very little to tell.’

‘Mr Monk is to be Prime Minister?’ she asked.

‘I did not say so. But it is not impossible.’

‘Has the Queen sent for him?’

‘Not as yet. Her Majesty has seen both Mr Gresham and Mr Daubney as well as myself. It does not seem a very easy thing to make a Ministry at present.’

‘Why should not you go back?’

‘I do not think that is on the cards.’

‘Why not? Ever so many men have done it, after going out,–and why not you? I remember Mr Mildmay doing it twice. It is always the thing, when the man who has been sent for makes a mess of it, for the old minister to have another chance.’

‘But what if the old minister will not take the chance?’

‘Then it is the old minister’s fault. Why shouldn’t you take the chance as well as another? It isn’t many days ago since you were quite anxious to remain in. I thought you were going to break your heart because people even talked of your going.’

‘I was going to break my heart, as you call it,’ he said, smiling, ‘not because people talked of my ceasing to be minister, but because the feeling of the House of Commons justified people in so saying. I hope you see the difference.’

‘No, I don’t. And there is no difference. The people we are talking about are the members,–and they have supported you. You could go on if you chose. I’m sure Mr Monk wouldn’t leave you.’

‘It is just what Mr Monk would do, and ought to do. No one is less likely than Mr Monk to behave badly in such an emergency. The more I see of Mr Monk, the higher I think of him.’

‘He has his own game to play as well as others.’

‘I think he has no game to play but that of his country. It is no use our discussing it, Cora.’

‘Of course I understand nothing, because I’m a woman.’

‘You understand a great deal,–but not quite all. You may at any rate understand this,–that our troubles are at an end. You were saying the other day that the labours of being a Prime Minister’s wife had been almost too many for you.’

‘I never said so. As long as you didn’t give way no labour was too much for me. I would have done anything,–slaved morning and night,–so that we might have succeeded. I hate being beat. I’d sooner be cut to pieces.’

‘There’s no help for it now, Cora. The Lord Mayor, you know, is only Lord Mayor for one year, and must then go back to private life.’

‘But men have been Prime Ministers for ten years at a time. If you have made up your mind, I suppose we may as well give up. I shall think it your own fault.’ He still smiled. ‘I shall,’ she said.

‘Oh, Cora!’

‘I can only speak as I feel.’

‘I don’t think you would speak as you do if you knew how much your words hurt me. In such a matter as this I should not be justified in allowing your opinions to have weight with me. But your sympathy would be so much to me!’

‘When I thought I was making you ill, I wished you might be spared.’

‘My illness would be nothing, but my honour is everything. I, too, have something to bear as well as you, and if you cannot approve of what I do, at any rate be silent.’

‘Yes;–I can be silent.’ Then he slowly left her. As he went she was almost tempted to yield, and to throw herself into his arms, and to promise that she would be soft to him, and to say that she was sure that all that he did was for the best. But she could not bring herself as yet to be good-humoured. If he had only been a little stronger, a little thicker-skinned, made of clay a little coarser, a little other than he was, it might have been so different!

Early on that Sunday afternoon she had herself driven to Mrs Finn’s house in Park Lane, instead of waiting for her friend. Latterly she had but seldom done this, finding that her presence at home was much wanted. She had been filled with, perhaps, foolish ideas of the necessity of doing something,–of adding something to the strength of her husband’s position,–and had certainly been diligent in her work. But now she might run about like any other woman. ‘This is an honour, Duchess,’ said Mrs